Background Materials

This is a link to an article where the company proposing the incinerator responds to citizen concerns about the incinerator. The company makes many statements that seem good, but which are really misleading. For example:

“EPA and Virginia DEQ will closely monitor the emissions“. What isn’t said is that, for example, dioxins are only monitored once a year, with advance notice given when the plant will be inspected. Only a few air emissions are monitored daily. See below about dioxin monitoring.

The discussion on solar and wind is very misleading. If Virginia commits to these technologies, a significant amount of electricity can be generated from these sources. Remember the wind farm leases off the coast of Virginia Beach bought by Dominion?

Dealing with the “waste stream” is a goal of the Board, but that can be done with far less pollution and cost than dirty incineration – reuse, recycle, composting – a Zero Waste goal.

“This system does not produce toxic waste by-products that will be buried.”But it will create toxic waste that mightbe able to be sold as a very, very dirty fuel (no buyers were identified, so what if it can’t be sold?), and it will create toxic waste that will need to be further burned (destructed) in cement kilns (meaning more polluting incineration) or dumped into the landfill. Yes, it might.

“The operating range of the retort varies from 700 degrees F to 1400 degrees F.” It is my understanding that dioxins are created as the incinerator heats up and cools down. So, if you know when the inspection will occur, you can heat that incinerator up above the temperatures that create dioxins.

“Technology has advanced“, but the fact is that no such plant has ever been successfully built and operated in the United States, which they acknowledge lower in the article. The one plant they mention, in England, has only been in operation for a short time, insufficient to evaluate its success or failure. Everyother attempt with this technology has failed miserably.

“EPA has done technical letters dating back to 2000 that state that pyrolysis is not incineration.” Did someone forget to mention that EPA defines pyrolysis as incineration and that the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality has stated that it will monitor the plant under incinerator regulations? Hmm.

“The waste … does not need to be homogenous.” True, but the reason every attempt to generate electricity using this technology has failed is because the waste stream is not homogenous enough to provide sufficient heatto power the downstream process, steam turbines. That is why the company needs to import tires, lots and lots of tires, because they do provide enough heat to run the steam turbines.

Water. The latest RFP states that there will be no water available to operate the plant. How do you use steam turbines without water? If the tires catch fire, how do you put out that fire without water? How do you handle waste water? Dump it into the sewage system (Stafford’s water treatment plants cannot handle that type of toxicity) or dig lots of holes and put the water into them to seep into the ground, with the problem of mosquitoes, water pollution, etc.

“Doing nothing will perpetuate the status quo.” True, but lets not do something that will make matters worse. Develop a plan that work towards a Zero Waste goal to significantly reduce landfill requirements. Other communities are moving in that direction, and we should as well.

“will create landfill methane which will need to be captured before it escapes into the atmosphere“. True. Stafford currently employs a system that captures the methane gas before it escapes into the atmosphere and uses it to generate electricity, and money for the landfill. So that really isn’t a problem; however, the loss of revenue currently generated by that process might be a problem.